Alex C. McAlvay

Profile

Many of our most pressing challenges such as sustainable resource management, climate change-induced biodiversity loss, invasive species, and food security are at the intersection of human culture, ecology, and evolution. Alex McAlvay’s research is focused on understanding the relationships between humans and their environments, the evolutionary and ecological impacts of humans on plants, and the traditional stewardship of plants by different cultures. His work ranges from genomic research, in order to understand how humans have shaped plants through domestication, to ethnobotanical projects, in order to support the continuity and revitalization of cultural traditions related to plants.

Crop mixtures: revitalizing a traditional agricultural practice for climate resilience

Plant biodiversity is a powerful ally in ensuring our food security into the future. Many of our staple grains face substantial yield losses under all climate change scenarios. In the past, many grain fields in parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia looked more like wild grasslands, with mixtures of different species of wheat, barley, rye, and/or other crops. In other cases, multiple varieties of one crop were planted together in a single field. In a few countries, this practice of growing mixed grains persists, and may represent a risk-management strategy for coping with climate variability. Farmers in Ethiopia are already experiencing the impacts of climate change through altered drought cycles and range expansion of pests. In the northern highlands, many small-holder farmers sow traditional mixtures of wheat and barley, as well as sorghum and teff varietal mixtures to mitigate these and other climate-related stresses, but these practices are being quickly replaced despite a lack of research on their potential benefits. Similarly, in the Republic of Georgia, a global center for wheat diversity, at least 12 distinct cereal mixtures are documented, but many are no longer planted or are planted in vary small areas. This work combines farmer interviews, agroecology, and GIS to characterize the ecological and social drivers of agrobiodiversity at a landscape scale and the potential of traditional cropping systems to buffer against climate uncertainty. Our findings so far indicate that some mixtures have enhanced yield, more consistent yield, and complementary nutritional profiles, compared to their single-crop components.

Shaping the land: Indigenous cultural ecosystems that enhance abundance of food without compromising on biodiversity

The Indigenous peoples of this continent have stewarded ecosystems for thousands of years through burning, transplanting, pruning and other management of otherwise “wild” plants. Alex is currently working with the Shinnecock Nation in the Northeast and multiple Tribal Nations and First Nations in the Pacific Northwest to document, preserve, and revitalize the cultural practices and landscapes that are tied to cultural identity and provide plant foods and medicines. In partnership with researchers and citizens of the Shinnecock Nation, he is working to document traditional plant knowledge and cultural burning practices. In the Pacific Northwest, Alex is working to build a network of Tribal Nations and First Nations to discuss how climate change may impact cultural ecosystems, how cultural ecosystems may be revitalized in the interest of food sovereignty, and how cultural ecosystems may serve as evidence for land rights claims.

Understanding the origins and diversity of our crops

Just as human selection has transformed wolves into a wide array of dog breeds, humans have shaped wild Brassica plants into diverse crops such as kale, cauliflower, and kohlrabi from Brassica oleracea as well as bok choy, turnips, and napa cabbage from Brassica rapa. Despite these crops’ worldwide economic importance and potential as a model for understanding the domestication process, insights into their evolutionary history have been limited due to a lack of clarity about their wild relatives. Alex and collaborators are working to clarify the domestication history and nature of wild crop genetic resources for B. rapa and other Brassica crops in order to better understand the process of domestication and escape from domestication (feralization) as well as novel sources of diversity to protect our crops from climate change.

Connecting endangered languages and Indigenous plant knowledge

Due to emigration, changing lifestyles, and other factors, words for plants, ecosystems, and other elements of nature are among the most rapidly disappearing in endangered languages. Alex and his team are working to document the Wixárika language, also known as Huichol, an endangered Uto-Aztecan language from West-Central Mexico with a focus on ecological terms and ethnobotanical knowledge. The project is a collaboration with native-speaker language activists Gabriel Pacheco and Tutupika Carrillo, postdoctoral linguist Stefanie Ramos Bierge, Mexican universities, and nonprofit community centers. This interdisciplinary effort will provide the key tools to fill knowledge gaps in Wixárika linguistics and ethnobiology as well as a basis for Wixárika language preservation and revitalization efforts.

Acknowledgments

Alex McAlvay’s research has been made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, The University of Washington’s Earthlab, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.